A Secret Love

by Stephanie Laurens

  “He’d be sympathetic, I should think. He wouldn’t noise it abroad.”

  “That’s not the point. Not with him. I don’t think you can imagine, Nellie, just how rich the Cynsters are. Even I have trouble assimilating the sums I know he regularly deals with.”

  “Can’t see why it matters, meself.”

  Alathea felt the familiar tugs as Nellie started braiding her hair. “Let’s just say that while I can cope with fraudulent companies and imminent disaster, the one thing I really don’t think I could face is pity.”

  His pity.

  Nellie sighed. “Ah, well, if that’s the way it must be . . .” Alathea sensed her fatalistic shrug. After a moment, Nellie asked, “But how’d you get him to agree to help if’n you didn’t tell him about the family all but being rolled up if that wretched company asks for their money?”

  “That”—Alathea opened her eyes—“was the main point of my masquerade. I did tell him. All of it. I could hardly expect him to help without knowing the details, and he certainly wouldn’t have helped if there hadn’t been a real family and a real threat. He’s never been easy to stir to action, but he is a Cynster and they always respond to certain prods. He had to be convinced of both the family and the threat, but the way I told it, it’s the countess’s family. I cast my father as my dead husband, with me as the countess, his second wife, and all the children as my stepchildren, instead of my stepbrothers and stepsisters. Serena I made into a cousin.”

  She paused, remembering.

  “What happened?”

  Alathea looked up to see Nellie regarding her in concern.

  “It’s no use telling me something didn’t go wrong—I can always tell when you look like that.”

  “Nothing went wrong.” She wasn’t about to tell Nellie about that kiss. “I just hadn’t thought of names for all the children. I used Charles for Charlie—it’s a common enough name after all—but I hadn’t expected Rupert to ask me about the others. When he did . . . well, I was so deep in being the countess, I couldn’t really think. I called them to mind and had to put names to them instantly or he would have grown suspicious.”

  Dropping her completed braid, Nellie stared at her. “You didn’t go and call them by their real names?”

  Rising, Alathea stepped away from the table. “Not exactly.”

  Nellie started unlacing her gown. “So what did you call them?”

  “Maria, Alicia, and Seraphina. I skipped the others.”

  “So what happens the first time he finds himself in a room with one of those books that list the lot of you? All he’ll have to do will be to look up the earls—you being a countess—and it’ll jump off the page at him. And he’ll know who you are then, too.” Straightening, Nellie helped her out of her gown. “Wouldn’t want to be in your shoes then, miss—not when he finds out. He won’t be pleased.”

  “I know.” Alathea shivered, and prayed Nellie thought it was because she was cold. She knew exactly what would happen if luck dealt against her and Rupert Melrose Cynster discovered she was his mysterious countess—that she was the woman he’d kissed in the porch of St. Georges.

  All hell would break lose.

  He didn’t have a temper, any more than she did.

  Which meant he didn’t appear to have one, until he lost it.

  “That’s why,” she continued, head emerging from the nightgown Nellie had thrown over her, “I made him swear not to try and identify me. The way I have it planned, he need never learn the truth.”

  She knew he wouldn’t appreciate having the wool pulled over his eyes. He had a deep, very real dislike of any form of deception. That, she suspected, was what lay behind his growing reputation for unmasking business frauds. “For now, everything’s perfect—he’s met the countess, heard her story, and agreed to help. He actually wants to help—wants to expose these men and their company. That’s important.” Whether she was reassuring Nellie or herself she wasn’t sure; her stomach hadn’t relaxed since he’d kissed her. “Lady Celia’s forever complaining about him being too indolent, too bored with life. The countess’s problem will give him something to work on, something that interests him.”

  Nellie snorted. “Next you’ll be saying being gulled will be good for him.”

  Alathea had the grace to blush. “It won’t hurt him. And I’ll be careful, so there’s no reason to think he ever will know that he’s been ‘gulled,’ as you put it. I’ll make sure he never meets the countess in daylight, or in any decent illumination. I’ll always wear a veil. With heels to make me even taller”—she gestured to the high-heeled shoes she’d discarded by the dressing table—“and that perfume”—another wave indicated the Venetian glass flacon standing before her mirror—“which is nothing like anything Alathea Morwellan has ever worn, I really do not see that there’s any danger of him knowing me.”

  Alathea glided to the bed; Nellie bustled ahead, turning down the covers and removing the copper warming pan. Slipping between the sheets, Alathea sighed. “So all is well. And when the company’s exposed and her family saved, the countess will simply”—she waved gracefully—“disappear in a drift of mist.”

  Nellie humphed. She shuffled about, tidying things away, hanging up Alathea’s clothes. From the wardrobe, she looked back at Alathea. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t simply go and see him, and tell him to his face what this is all about. Pride’s all very well, but this is serious.”

  “It’s not only pride.” Lying back, Alathea gazed at the canopy. “I didn’t ask him to his face because he very likely would not have helped me, not personally. He’d have directed me to Montague as fast as he politely could, and that simply won’t do. I—we—need his help, not the assistance of his henchman. I need the knight on his charger, not his squire.”

  “I don’t see that—he’d have helped, why wouldn’t he? It’s not as if you two don’t go back near to all your lives. He’s known you since you was in your cradle. You played as babies and all through the years, right up until you was fifteen and ready to be a lady.” Her tidying done, candle in hand, Nellie approached the big bed. “If you was just to go to him and explain it all, I’m sure he’d help.”

  “Believe me, Nellie, that wouldn’t work. While he’ll extend himself to help the mysterious countess, he would never do the same for me.” Turning onto her side, Alathea closed her eyes and ignored Nellie’s disbelieving sniff. “Good night.”

  After a moment, a soft, grumbling “Good night” reached her. The candlelight playing on her eyelids faded, then the door clicked as Nellie let herself out.

  Alathea sighed, sinking deeper into the mattress, trying to relax the muscles that had tensed when he’d kisssed her. That was the one development she hadn’t foreseen but it was hardly serious, presumably the sort of sophisticated dalliance he practiced on all likely ladies. If she could start her charade again, she’d think twice about making herself a widow, one already out of mourning, but it was done—the masquerade had begun. And while she might not be able to fully explain it to Nellie, her charade was absolutely essential.

  Rupert Melrose Cynster, her childhood playmate, was the one, perfectly armed knight she’d had to win to her side. She knew his true mettle—what he could accomplish, would accomplish, once he was fully committed to a cause. With him as her champion, they would have a real chance of triumphing over the Central East Africa Gold Company. Without his aid, that feat had appeared close to impossible.

  Knowing him of old—so well, so thoroughly—she’d known that to secure his commitment, she would need to fully engage his ofttimes fickle interest. She needed him to focus on her problem, willingly bringing his considerable abilities to bear. So she’d invented the countess and, cloaked in beguiling mystery, had set about recruiting him, body and soul, to her cause.

  She’d won her first battle—he was ready to fight beside her. For the first time since Figgs had placed the wretched promissory note before her, she allowed herself to believe in ultimate victory.

&n
bsp; As far as the ton would see, the Morwellans were in town as expected to allow the younger daughters to make their curtsies to society and for Charlie to make his bow. She, the eldest daughter, now an ape-leader, would hug the shadows, assisting with her stepsisters’ come-outs, in her spare moments donning cloak and veil to masquerade as the countess and remove the sword presently poised over her family’s future.

  She smiled at such melodramatic thoughts. They came easily to mind—she knew precisely what she was doing. She also knew precisely why Rupert wouldn’t have helped her as he would the countess, although it wasn’t something she was eager to explain, even to Nellie.

  They disliked being in the same room, certainly not within ten feet of each other. Any closer proximity was like wearing a hair shirt. The peculiarity had afflicted them from the age of eleven and twelve; since then, it had been a constant in their lives. What caused it remained a mystery. As their younger selves, they’d tried to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there, but the relief they’d both felt when her impending ladyhood had spelled an end to their all but daily association had been too real to ignore.

  Of course they’d never discussed it, but his reaction was there in the sharpening of his hazel gaze, the sudden tensing of his muscles, in the difficulty he had remaining near her for more than a few minutes. Uncomfortable wasn’t an adequate description—the affliction was far worse than that.

  She’d never been able to decide if she reacted to him as he did to her, or if her aggravation arose in response to his. Whatever the truth, their mutual affliction was something they’d learned to live with, learned to hide, and ultimately, learned to avoid. Neither would unnecessarily precipitate a prolonged encounter.

  That was why, despite growing up as they had, despite their families being such close neighbors, he and she had never waltzed. They had danced—one country dance. Even that had left her breathless, waspish and thoroughly out of temper. Like him, she wasn’t given to displays of temper—the only one able to provoke her, all but instantly, was he.

  And that—all of that—explained why the countess had walked the porch of St. Georges. While she could not, absolutely, know his mind and thus be certain he would not have personally helped her, she imagined his instincts would have prompted him to help, but his reaction to her would have mitigated against it. Dealing with the company for her would mean seeing her frequently, often alone, which usually made the affliction worse. They’d met briefly only a few months ago—their affliction was stronger than ever. They’d reduced each other to quivering rage in under three minutes. She couldn’t believe, if she asked for his help, that he’d break the habit of years and readily spend hours in her company—or, if he did, that it wouldn’t drive them both demented.

  More to the point, she hadn’t been able to risk finding out. If she’d presented her problem to him as herself, only to have him send her to Montague, she couldn’t then have appeared as the countess.

  No choice.

  He would never forgive her if he ever found out—ever learned she was the countess. He would probably do worse than that. But she’d had no choice—her conscience wasn’t troubling her, not really. If there’d been any other sure way of getting him to help her without deceiving him, she would have taken it, but . . .

  She was halfway asleep, drifting in the mists, her mind revisiting bits and pieces of their rendezvous, revolving more and more about that unnerving kiss, when she started awake. Blinking, eyes wide, she stared up at the canopy—and considered the fact that their decades-old mutual affliction had not reared its head that night.

  “Ala-the-aaa. Whoo-hoo! Allie! Can you pass the butter, please?”

  Alathea focused—Alice was pointing across the luncheon table. Bemusedly glancing in that direction, her brain belatedly caught up with reality; lifting the butter dish, she passed it across.

  “You’re in a brown study today.” Serena was sitting next to her, at the end of the table.

  Alathea waved dismissively. “I didn’t sleep all that well last night.” She’d been so keyed up, primed to play the countess, desperate to secure Rupert’s aid, that she’d rested not at all before her three o’clock appointment. And afterwards . . . after her success, after that kiss, after realizing . . . she shook aside the distraction. “I’m still not used to all the street sounds.”

  “Perhaps you should move to another room?”

  Glancing at Serena’s sweet face, brow furrowed with concern, Alathea clasped her stepmother’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’m perfectly happy with my room. It faces the back gardens as it is.”

  Serena’s face eased. “Well . . . if you’re sure. But now Alice has woken you up”—her eyes twinkled—“I wanted to check how much we can afford to spend on the girls’ walking dresses.”

  Alathea gladly gave Serena her attention. Short, plump, and fashionably matronly, Serena was gentle and retiring, yet in the matter of her daughters’ come-outs, she’d proved both shrewd and well up to snuff. With real relief, Alathea had consigned all the details of their social lives, including their wardrobes, to Serena, more than content to play a supporting role in that sphere. They’d been in town for just over a week and all was on track for a pleasant Season all around.

  All she had to do was prove the Central East Africa Gold Company a fraud, and all would be well.

  The thought returned her mind to its preoccupation—and to the man she’d recruited last night. She glanced around the table, viewing her family as if through his eyes. She and Serena discussed materials, trimmings, and bonnets, with Mary and Alice hanging on every word. At the table’s other end, her father, Charlie, and Jeremy discussed the more masculine entertainments on offer. Alathea heard her father muse on the attractions of Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, a prospect guaranteed to divert both Charlie as well as his precocious younger brother.

  Leaving Serena, Mary, and Alice debating colors, Alathea turned to the youngest member of the family, sitting quietly beside her, a large doll on her lap. “And how are you and Rose today, poppet?”

  Lady Augusta Morwellan raised huge brown eyes to Alathea’s face and smiled trustingly. “I had a lovely time in the garden this morning, but Rose here”—she turned the doll so Alathea could inspect her—“has been fractious. Miss Helm and I think we should take her for a walk this afternoon.”

  “A walk? Oh, yes! That’s a lovely idea—just what we need.” Having settled her sartorial requirements, Mary, all bouncing brown ringlets and glowing eyes, was ready for the next excitement.

  “I’m starting to feel hemmed in with all these houses and streets.” With fair hair and doelike eyes, Alice was more serious and contained. She smiled at Augusta. “And Augusta won’t want us disturbing Rose with our chatter.”

  Augusta returned the smile sweetly. “No. Rose needs quiet.” Too young to share in the excitement that had infected the rest of the family, Augusta was content to stroll the nearby square, her hand in Miss Helm’s, and stare, wide-eyed, at all the new and different sights.

  “Is there somewhere else we can go—other than the park, I mean?” Alice looked from Alathea to Serena. “We won’t have our new dresses until next week, so it’s probably better we don’t go there too often.”

  “I would prefer that you didn’t haunt the park anyway,” Serena said. “Better to appear only a few times a week, and we were there yesterday.”

  “So where shall we go? It has to be somewhere with trees and lawns.” Mary fixed her glowing gaze on Alathea’s face.

  “Actually . . .” Alathea considered—just because she’d successfully recruited her knight didn’t mean she had to sit on her hands and leave all the investigating to him. She refocused on her stepsisters’ faces. “There’s a particular park I know of, quiet and pleasant, cut off from all the noise. It’s very like the country—you can almost forget you’re in London.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Alice declared. “Let’s go there.”

  “We’re going to Bond Street!” Jeremy pushed bac
k his chair.

  Charlie and the earl did the same. The earl smiled at his womenfolk. “I’ll take these two off for the afternoon.”

  “I’m going to learn to box!” Jeremy danced around the table, thrusting his fists through the air, dealing summarily with invisible opponents. Laughing, Charlie caught Jeremy’s fists, then half-waltzed, half-wrestled him out of the room. Jeremy’s piping protests and Charlie’s deeper amused taunts faded as they progressed in the direction of the front door.

  Mary and Alice rose to follow. “We’ll get our bonnets.” Mary looked at Alathea. “Shall I fetch yours?”

  “Please.” Alathea rose, too.

  The earl stopped by her side, his fingers light on her arm. “Is everything all right?” he asked quietly.

  Alathea looked up. Despite his age and the troubles resting heavily on his shoulders, her father, two inches taller than she, remained a strikingly handsome man. Glimpsing shadows of pain and regret in his eyes, she smiled reassuringly; she caught his hand and squeezed. “Everything’s going well.”

  He’d been devastated when he’d learned about the promissory note. He’d thought the sum pledged was much smaller—the wording of the note was such that arithmetic was required to determine the total sum. All he’d intended was to gain a few extra guineas to spend on the girls’ weddings. She’d spent some time comforting him, assuring him that although the situation was bad, it was not the final end.

  It had been hard for him to carry on as if nothing had happened so the children wouldn’t suspect. Only the three of them—he, she and Serena—knew of the latest threat or, indeed, of the perilous state of the earldom’s finances. From the first, they’d agreed that the children were never to know that their future hung by such a slender thread.

  Despite the fact she had spent all her adult life putting right the problems her father had caused, Alathea had never been able to hold it against him. He was the most lovable, and loving, man—he was simply incapable when it came to money.